← Ukraine: The Latest
Ukraine: The Latest
Russia ‘attacks Chinese ship’ & Ukraine hits Moscow in biggest strike of 2026
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- [00:04]
David Knowles
The telegraph. I'm Dom Nicholls and this is Ukraine. The latest today after Ukraine unleashes its response to last week's Russian attacks. With more Moscow airports closed, more naval assets hit and more Russian oil infrastructure producing, pretty mushroom clouds. The Kremlin suggests it may be up for peace talks, including perhaps by opening a channel of communication with with the European Union. We ask if Russia will have to open another channel of communication with Beijing after one of Russia's shared drones hit a Chinese cargo ship a day before Putin visits President 11. And we hear from our Berlin correspondent about how Europe is taking steps to rearm in the face of Russian belligerence and US disinterest. Plus later we speak to an advisor to the Ukrainian government about how Kyiv hopes to answer the armed forces recruitment crisis after Kirill Badanov says Ukraine cannot meet the army's needs solely through voluntary recruitment. Bravery takes you through the most unimaginable hardships to finally reward you with victory.
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Podcast Narrator
The Russia does not want peace.
- [01:23]
David Knowles
If I'm President, I will have that war settled in one day, 24 hours. We are with you. Not just today or tomorrow, but for 100 years. Nobody's going to break us. We are strong. We are Ukrainians. It's Monday the 18th of May, four years and 83 days since the full scale invasion began. And today I'm joined by the Telegraph's Berlin correspondent James Rothwell and and co founder and deputy head of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center, Olesya Horinova. Now, last week President Zelenskyy ordered his military to propose possible formats for our response to those two days of Russian strikes following the Victory Day ceasefire. Well, Saturday night Russia and in particular Moscow got the response. Hundreds of Ukrainian drones caused widespread destruction. To give you an idea of the scale of the attack, Russian authorities said 586 drones had been shot down and clearly others got through. They didn't say the last bit in total, overnight, Saturday, Sunday, it's thought there were 186 Ukrainian strikes on 46 targets in the occupied territories and occupied Crimea, as well as Russia itself. There were numerous explosions in Moscow and across the wider region in what's thought to have been the biggest Ukrainian attack in a year. Something hit the Runway at Shemrettievo airport in the capital. It's thought to be the busiest aviation hub in the country, although whether that was the munition or drone debris, it's not clear. The Runway was briefly satellite there. Then the Russian Transportation Ministry announced temporary airspace restrictions and the diversion of 51 flights overnight Saturday Sunday and said that 2/3 of flights from Moscow's numerous airports were delayed for over two hours. There was an explosion at the Moscow oil refinery in Kapotna Rayon, that's to the southeast of the city centre. The SPU claimed that one the Security Service of Ukraine and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that 12 workers had been injured but that production had not been disrupted. Then the Solchinorsk oil pumping station in Dzherkino, that's northwest of Moscow center was also hit. Nearby to that, a semiconductor plant which produces microelectronics for high precision weapons was hit at the Elma Techno park in Zelenograd, that's northwest of Moscow city center. Drones were also shot down across 14 other Russian regions as well as occupy Crimea. Russia's defense ministry said one person was reported killed in Belgorod. A Project 10410 patrol ship in Kaspisk Dagestan in the Caspian Sea was hit as well as other Russian military infrastructure. President Zelenskyy said Ukrainian long range sanctions reached the Moscow region and we are clearly telling the Russians their state must end its war. He then made a very interesting comment. He said the concentration of Russian air defense in the Moscow region is the highest, but we are overcoming it. I think there are two interesting things here. The psychological impact on Muscovites to see the war coming home to them. And if more air defence is moved to the Moscow region, it gives even more opportunity for Ukraine to hit other targets elsewhere. Now Russia's response was typical, but whether it has the standard stultifying effect on the public has yet to be seen. The Russian Ministry of Affairs spokesperson Maria Zakharova criticised the Ukrainian strikes for their impact on civilians, whilst failing to say anything about the strikes against Russian defence, industrial plants, airports or oil infrastructure, or indeed anything about the impact of Russian strikes on Ukrainian civilians. However, it's also worth noting Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov's comments on Sunday after and possibly connected to the Ukrainian attacks. He said that Moscow could restart dialogue with Brussels over the war. That is perhaps a continuation of Moscow's recent soft outreach after Putin referred to Ukrainian President as Mr. Zelenskyy last week and an acknowledgment that the war is coming closer to the powerful elites in Moscow and St Petersburg. It may also be an acknowledgment that Washington is seen now to be less and less relevant when it comes to brokering peace. More on his comments shortly. But back to the strikes. Robert Maggia Brody, the commander of Ukraine's Unmanned Systems Forces posted an image on telegram of an unmanned aerial vehicle with the phrase Moscow Never Sleeps scrawled across the wing then referring to the elite Patriarchs Pond neighborhood of Moscow. He wrote in the caption to the image, the one sided path to a peaceful life in Patriki and the surrounding areas has been revoked. In his evening address last night, President Zelensky said many Western partners are now signaling that they see what is happening and how everything has changed, both in attitudes towards this war and in the reachability of of Russian targets on Russian territory now still in Ukraine but to occupy Crimea. And there are reports of new Russian defensive fortifications being built on the beaches. It all looks like a very jolly day out and in what is thought to be the first such use, footage emerged on Sunday of Ukrainian FP1 and FP2 attack drones made by Firepoint, hence the name, launching a salvo of unguided air to ground rockets against the Black Sea Fleet. Communications notes now into Russia and also over the weekend, although not exactly sure of the time. There's some very dramatic footage of an explosion caught on film showing a fuel station erupting in a ball of flame in Pyatigorsk in Stavropalkrai in the south of the country, right near the Georgian border. Also on Saturday, Mr. Zelenskyy said that his army had destroyed a rare amphibious aircraft deep behind enemy lines, although we're not sure when that hit took place. Also, I've seen some chatter of unverified footage from an outfit I've not heard of before, the Russian domestic resistance group Black Spark, claiming to have detonated two Gazprom gas pipelines near St. Petersburg using military explosives. No further details known about that. No move on the ground. Russian attacks continued over the weekend, with central and southern areas of Ukraine hit hard. Last night. In particular, Russia launched 524 drones and 22 missiles, including 14 ballistic missiles, Ukraine's air force said this morning. Of them, 503 drones and four missiles were shot down. Multiple explosions were heard in the city of Dnipro during a six hour attack and residential buildings were also hit. In Odessa, also just up the coast from Odesa, a Russian drone hit a Chinese cargo ship in the Black Sea on Sunday night, Ukrainian navy spokesperson Dmitry Plettenchuk said the Chinese commercial vessel, which is said to be sailing under the Marshall Islands flag en route to the Pivdeny port just up the coast from Odessa for iron ore concentrate loading, was in Ukraine's territorial waters at the time of the strike. He added there were no casualties, the Ukrainian Navy said in a statement. Russia once again demonstrates that its attacks threaten not only Ukraine. Now even the ships of its closest partners are at risk in the Black sea. To which Mr. Plettenchuk replied, Possibly with a raised eyebrow, this is something new, a little bit awkward, as Putin is heading to Beijing tomorrow to meet Xi Jinping now. The Ukrainian government's defense tech arm, Brave 1, announced this morning its first glide bombs ready for combat deployment, having taken only 17 months to develop. There are few details given, but they say the warhead weighs 250kg and the weapon features a unique design created specifically for the realities of modern warfare. They don't say what the range is, but it says it will be able to hit targets dozens of kilometers behind the lines. I suppose that depends where you release it. Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov said pilots are currently rehearsing combat scenarios and adapting the new weapon system for use in real wartime conditions. Soon, Ukrainian glide bombs will be striking enemy targets. Now a few more on the diplomatic front, I said earlier on that Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov had made some comments yesterday after that massive Ukrainian attack, suggesting Moscow might be up for talks with the eu. Of course, he tried to frame any future engagement with the Europeans as being Moscow's idea and an example of their munificence. He said the active discussion of this topic, the. The shift towards understanding that at some point they, the Europeans will have to speak with the Russians, is good. He added that a practical approach would eventually take shape and the Russian side will be ready for this. He said. He then had a pop at Kaia Kallas, the European Union's High Representative for Foreign affairs and Security Policy, saying it would not be in kaiakalis interests to act as a negotiator. It would not be easy for her. If you remember, Putin said this could generally be anyone who, who has not managed to say too many bad things. Again, Russia is trying to set the pace to set the terms for future talks. It's not up to them to dictate who represents the eu. It's worth noting too that just this morning, before the start of a meeting of the EU Foreign Affairs Council, Ms. Kallis said Russia is currently in a weak position to negotiate regarding ending the war in Ukraine anyway, having heard not a lot from the Kremlin about peace talks, now they seem unable to shut up. Just in the last few hours, Dmitry Peskov has spoken again. He's commented about the possibility of US mediated peace talks being back on the agenda. He said that we expect that the peace process will be resumed after all, and we expect our American colleagues to continue their peacemaking and mediation efforts in this regard. Now, all his comments come just after Estonian Foreign Minister Margu Sakhna urged allies not to engage in negotiations with Moscow, warning that Russia could use talks to buy time. At the Lennetmeri security conference in Tallinn on Saturday, Mr. Zakner said Europeans should not miss the moment to weaken Russia through additional sanctions and pressure. Now, talking about sanctions and pressure, the US has allowed that sanctions waiver, remember that one, permitting purchases of Russian oil stranded at sea to expire without renewal. This is according to U.S. treasury Department's office for Foreign Assets Control. The waiver expired at the start of Saturday morning and the Treasury Department has not issued an extension. U.S. treasury Secretary Scott Besant had previously said there were no plans to renew the authorization. We'll have to wait and see on the impact of that. And then finally, in case Putin is in any doubt about the resolve of Ukrainian society, Kyiv hosted a marathon on Sunday. An air raid alert sounded during the run but didn't interrupt proceedings. Now I'm delighted to turn to our Berlin correspondent James Rothwell. James, got a few stories I'd like to pick your brains about. You've been very busy. You've done a lot of things. You've produced a series exploring Europe's efforts to rearm against the threat of Russian invasion at a time when the US is distracted, to put it positively distracted, from NATO, if not outright disengaging. So I'd be interested in your thoughts more broadly on that. But can you talk us through this series you've started and when we're likely to see it?
- [11:50]
James Rothwell
Yes, that's right. So the first part of the series was all about Germany and the biggest rearmament drive underway in Germany, indeed, since World War II. And that was a story that I reported from the factory of Heckler and Koch down in Oberndorf, because Heckler and Koch is a big, prestigious, famous gun factory, has had to massively ramp up the production of its firearms, in particular the G9, which is issued to the Bundeswehr, the German armed forces. So we spoke to them about the efforts they're making to not only expand the factory floor that they have available already, but they're also producing new sites where they can build even more guns and even acquire one business down in Essex in the UK to meet the same goal. And that, of course, of course, is all part of Germany's goal to create what Chancellor Friedrich Metz has said must be the strongest conventional army in Europe, referring to the Bundeswehr, which as you know, Dom was very, very badly under invested in for many decades. And the Germans are now trying quite urgently to right that ship. Reverse that course.
- [12:53]
David Knowles
Yeah. So I'm always interested when we, when we speak to the commercial sector. So is HK doing this in anticipation of greater orders or have they already received orders from Germany and elsewhere? I'm interested in light of the experience we hear here in the UK, particularly from BAE Systems regarding 155 mil artillery ammunition. We know that the government has issued what's called letters of intent and BAE Systems and others say that's all well and good, but we can't expand our factories on letters of intent, we need orders. So where's HK sitting in that kind of argument?
- [13:28]
James Rothwell
So the orders have increased, but H and K is also anticipating more orders coming through from the German government. At the same time there's quite an important consultation underway on the part of the German government at the moment to allocate huge amounts of public funding for rearmament. The German government some months ago introduced a new law which basically lifts this very, very long running limit on debt in Germany, which means that any major defence project that's worth More than 1% of GDP is now subject to potentially unlimited defence funding. It doesn't apply quite as much to small arms producers like Heckler and Koch compared to say Reinmetall, you know, which is doing a lot more work on infantry fighting vehicles and even tanks and things like that. But they certainly play a role in it. And they were the only German arms company that was willing to take us on a tour, which is why we decided to go down there to speak to them directly. And we were very glad that we were able to do that. It's quite unusual actually in Germany to get that sort of access. The German defence industry had a pretty atrocious reputation for many years in Germany. So it was very unusual.
- [14:39]
David Knowles
Yeah. Did you get to fire the guns? I do hope you applied the four marksmanship principles.
- [14:43]
James Rothwell
We did not fire the guns ourselves but we were taken down to a testing range where they have several of these with a lot of, as I understand it, ex German special forces types employed to basically fire guns all day. Thousands and thousands of ranges rounds. So we saw the test firing of the latest model basically of the MP5, which is probably the most famous gun that this company has ever produced. So we put the ear protectors on, stood behind a glass stream and watched a guy fire what must have been a few hundred rounds of that, but we were mainly on the factory floor. They're explaining to us basically how these firearms are assembled. So as you would expect, you know, there's certain things that we can show, there's certain things that we can't show for security reasons. But I think we were able to give our readers a pretty well rounded picture of how everything gets made.
- [15:32]
David Knowles
So is this Germany's Zeitemwende in action, the turning point that Olaf Scholz heralded and then seemed to go a bit cool on? The idea is this nested within a wider policy, government policy, defence and security, foreign affairs policy, reaching out to the world, having a more. Taking a more robust stance in terms of European security? Or are these sort of outliers that just sort of come and go? The commercial whims?
- [15:56]
James Rothwell
Definitely not outliers. It's part of a major new policy under the German government to become Kriegstuchtig, or war ready. That's been going on for some years now. But it was only really with the arrival of Friedrich Metz, a relatively new Chancellor, that we've seen the spending massively increase. And we're not just talking about spending on guns, tanks, that sort of thing. We're also looking at a big recruitment drive. I think it's 60,000 new soldiers that the Bundeswehr is trying to bring into its ranks. And there's an enormous public fund of half a trillion euros which is being allocated for infrastructure in Germany. Now at first glance you might think, well, infrastructure, what's that got to do with the military? But as you know, Dom, Germany's a really important transit hub for any NATO forces that would need to rapidly move to the eastern flank. And at the moment, because of that lack of public investment, we've done stories on this, actually. You know, there are concerns that the bridges and the roads may not be able to support tanks. And so that's what that money is going towards as well. Or at least that's the idea. In the second half of our story, I spoke to some sources who are quite deeply embedded in the German defense industry and they offered, you know, anonymously of course, a rather different perspective on this, which is that they're quite frustrated about the pace of this. They say that Germany talks a great game on rearmaments, that the headline figures of big spending are all good and proper, but in their experience they're finding it very, very difficult to get the German government bodies responsible for giving out the contracts to bit more willing to take risks. There's a lot of resentment in the German defense industry towards Rheinmetal, which is kind of the big beast of the industry. They're accused of sucking up all the contracts. And some of the younger, more energetic, more nimble defense firms that are experimenting with AI, for example, some of those feel that they're being left out. So as you might expect, there's a lot of politics going on behind the scenes. Everyone wants a slice of this, this huge piece.
- [17:57]
David Knowles
Yeah, it's a very similar situation here in the UK with the big primes. I cited BAE Systems a while ago. They are habitually bashed by the small and medium sized enterprises for being a sort of representative of the big primes. I'm not doing them a disservice at all. It makes them amazing military capability. But it is just the way of this sector whereby the big primes and those are the kind of characters that can really take the long lead risk if you're going to be building ships, tanks, planes and all the rest of it. But you know, by nature of the fact that they're so big, some of the smaller ones feel a bit squeezed. Now, you mentioned Chancellor Mertz talking a good game. He's been doing a lot of talking lately and some of his comments have upset Donald Trump. So again, what's he been saying? What's the US Reaction been? And is this unguarded language or is this, do you think it's a deliberate ploy to perhaps put a little bit of a distance between Europe and the United States, especially if we're now in the era of big rearmament?
- [18:53]
James Rothwell
Well, as you say, Chancellor Friedrich Metz has definitely been saying some interesting things about the United States, particularly the United States performance in the war in Iran. This all started a couple of weeks ago when the German chancellor was visiting a school in his home region of Sourland, where he probably felt nice and at home, perhaps a little bit too home, a little bit too comfortable, because he basically started speaking, you know, very much off the cuff in his characteristically blunt way about the negotiations to end the war between the United States and Iran. And he basically said that the Iranians were running rings around the Trump administration. He said that the Americans had been left humiliated. That was the word he used specifically. And I don't think that Merz's assessment of the way that those peace talks were unfolding at the time was inaccurate per se. The but he got a lot of criticism for those remarks initially in Germany because they caused a huge war of words with President Trump. He started firing off lots of criticism in turn at Friedrich Metz on Truth Social, his social media network. He said that. He basically said that Germany was sort of failing under Friedrich Metz, that immigration was out of control, that the economy was tanking, that this was all poor Friedrich's fault, and so on and so forth. And then that culminated in the withdrawal of 5,000American troops from Germany. Now, some people looked at that and they said, gosh, this was a gaffe, this was a blunder by the German Chancellor. He put his foot in his mouth, he criticised the President of America at a bad time and now we're paying the price. But what's interesting is that, as you alluded to earlier, first of all, some Germans quite like to see their Chancellor standing up to the American President. They like to feel that there's a bit of daylight, well, a lot of daylight, frankly, between the American position on this war and Germany's position on it. Friedrich Metz was initially a big supporter of the war in Iran, and that won him plaudits in Washington. But once the Strait of Hormuz got closed, once it wreaked absolute havoc on German energy prices, he started criticizing it pretty damn quickly. And so this latest criticism about the Iran US war negotiations was seen by some as an attempt to create even more distance between himself and the President of the United States. And I think you're right. I think that's a significant element of this, too. I don't think it was a gaffe. I would speculate that the German Chancellor knew that he was making public remarks when he appeared in front of those schoolchildren. I think he knew that they'd been picked up by the press. And I do think that there was a domestic political goal in mind, which was to try and get some credit in the bank with German voters who were really alarmed about the trajectory that the war in Iran was taking.
- [21:44]
David Knowles
Yeah, I saw the report and I thought you're either a very. A very unprofessional politician and out of your depth to be caught using words like humiliated in public on camera, talking about the United States administration and the US president, in which case you shouldn't be where you are, or it's entirely deliberate, because, you know, these words don't just slip out by accident. I don't think just my view. Now, you're talking about a slight distancing, perhaps a distancing from the US in order to boost domestic politics and arms sales and what have you. I know France is prepared, apparently, to cooperate with Ukraine on developing a ballistic missile defense system. President Zelenskyy said this on Saturday. This is following A phone call with French President Emmanuel Macron. Mr. Zelenskyy, we know, wants to build an international, as he calls it, anti ballistic coalition. It is very interesting to see what's happening in Europe, Germany. We've just been discussing France here. So another area you've written about, a connected area, is Europe's search for a homegrown kind of Tomahawk replacement alternative. Not quite a replacement, but this might just be quite good capability development. But also there's now questions, serious questions being asked about whether or not the US is good for its word, if they're going to renege on some of these defence contracts they've already signed about Tomahawks. What have you been looking at there?
- [23:05]
James Rothwell
That's absolutely right. So if you cast your mind back to July 2024, summer of 2024, Joe Biden's president, Olaf Scholz as the Chancellor in Germany, and there was this announcement of Tomahawk.
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David Knowles
That feels like a long time ago.
- [23:20]
James Rothwell
It feels like a million years. But it was in fact only two years ago, strangely enough. But anyway, this announcement was made. It was going to be Tomahawk missile stationed in Germany. And it was a very important announcement at the time because it filled a capability gap in NATO, a kind of Achilles heel. As we said in our story, it was a long rang capability launched from the ground that Europe didn't have. So it was a bit of a relief that Biden was planning to send those missiles. Fast forward two years and buried in that war of words that we talked about earlier between Trump and Metz was not just the decision to remove 5,000American soldiers from Germany, but a decision to also scrap that Biden era pledge on Tomahawks. And that really caught the Germans off guard. They knew that there was probably going to be a drawdown of American troops being announced at some point. Point there's some speculation in Berlin that was always coming and that if Metz hadn't made the comments about Iran humiliating America, then another excuse would have been found. But oh, boy, oh boy, the Tomahawks not coming over. That was a much, much bigger concern. That really set the alarm bells ringing
- [24:31]
David Knowles
because we thought a few months ago, James, the views seem to have moved on that Donald Trump is not somebody that talks in terms of values and alliances and all this kind of collegiate stuff. And it became, I think it was sort of viewed in the international landscape that if we're just in a transactional relationship with this guy now, we give you the money, you give us the guns and missiles, fine. We all know where we are, the guy's a businessman. It's quite simple. It's a fairly rudimentary one dimensional relationship. But if that's what it is, fine. We know the animal we're dealing with. But now that seems to be no longer the case, that he's even going back on some of these business relationships.
- [25:07]
James Rothwell
I think that's right. I mean, we've always thought of the transatlantic relationship as being very transactional under Donald Trump. And I think this row shows actually that there's a significant element of personal friendship and loyalty, actually, that plays into it. I think if you go back to when Friedrich Matz visited Donald Trump in the White House, they seem to get on incredibly well. And one of the reasons the visit went so swimmingly for the German Chancellor was because while they were sitting in the Oval Office together, President Trump launched a kind of verbal salvo at Keir Starmer, our Prime minister, saying that he's no Winston Churchill, and he also attacked Pedro Sanchez, the Spanish prime minister. And the German chancellor said nothing. I mean, he just kind of sat there with his hands in his lap, not daring to speak up and address this criticism of his closest allies in Europe. And he got a lot of criticism of that back in Germany, but it went down really well in Washington. It gave the impression that when Germany has to choose between standing up for its allies in Europe or keeping the US President happy, it wants to keep the US President happy, but then met, oddly enough, comes out with this criticism of America talking about its humiliation at the hands of Iran. And that's when suddenly things start to get really personal. If you look at the posts by President Trump on True Social, they are personal attacks almost on Friedrich Metz's character, you know, linking the economic troubles of Germany, which go back many, many years. Right. They go back to Olaf Scholz, they go back to Merkel as well. But putting all of it on the doorstep of Friedrich Metz, it to me was suggestive of the president, who felt perhaps slightly wounded, that he thought that Friedrich Metz was one of his buddies and was sort of learning the hard way that perhaps he isn't and that he's just as transactional, ironically enough, that the president himself can be at times. So, yes, I do think that this episode is an indicator of that.
- [26:56]
David Knowles
So hence we end up with this potential for a Ukrainian Franco. Not that Franco, the other one French Tomahawk replacement.
- [27:04]
James Rothwell
Yes, that's right. So there's a couple of options that the Germans have got to try and replace the Tomahawks. And to be clear, One of them is just kind of going to Washington with cap in hand and to basically beg for them. And that is in fact due to happen later this month. Boris Pistorius, the German Defence Minister, has set up a four day long trip in Washington where it sounds like that's quite a long time is because they're hoping they can get some time in the diary with the US Defense Secretary. So that's one thing that the Germans are going to try and do. There's also the idea of Elsa. This is a, as you say, homegrown European long range missile project.
- [27:43]
David Knowles
Yeah. So remind. So European long. What's the S. I can't remember what that is. Elsa, I saw Elsa, European Long Range Strike Asset or something is a European cruise missile, isn't it?
- [27:56]
James Rothwell
It's called the European Long Range Strike Approach. And I think it would be fair definitely in layman's terms to say it's kind of European cruise missile. Now that's not going to be ready for quite some time. 2000s maybe at this rate would be a kind of optimistic prediction. So there's got to be a bridge or a stopgap. That's where the Ukrainians could come in and things could get very interesting. There is talk of some kind of Ukrainian stopgap being developed. It would not become Europe's primary source of ground launched long range fires. It might not even be ground launched actually, for that matter. It just needs to be something that's capable of traveling a hell of a long way, you know, sort of 2000km plus in order to make sure that we've got some kind of capability along those lines until the ELSA program is complete. And a slight caveat there you will have seen, I think we've talked actually before on the podcast about all the trouble in terms of like Franco German, for example, cooperation on nextgen generation military projects. We saw that with the fighter jet, for example, and the squabbling over what it needs to actually do and the different priorities in France and Germany and what its capabilities should be. So I think it's a good idea. I think many sources I spoke to for this piece think it's not just a good idea, but actually imperative that some kind of credible stopgap or bridge is there. I wouldn't say there's a huge amount of faith that Elsa will be ready near future.
- [29:20]
David Knowles
Well, we will obviously keep our eye on that. James, thank you so much. Do hang around if you're able to, for final thoughts a little bit later. But no, fascinating just before you go, actually so the series you're producing, these are the first two, how many episodes are going to be?
- [29:32]
James Rothwell
That's right. It's a collaborative series. So I've done the first three. German rearmaments, Europe's missile crisis, and I'm now working on the third part in the series which is about civil defense and recruitment that's coming out next Monday, I believe. And then my esteemed colleagues Joe Barnes and James Crisp are working on a couple of other pieces as well. I'm not directly involved in those, but my understanding is that one of them is looking at nuclear policy and the other one is looking at all the diplomacy surrounding rearmament rather than the guns and the bombs and that sort of thing. So we're looking at a five part series in total and I highly recommend that our readers take a look at them if they want a primer on not only the politics of rearmament, but also the geopolitics, the economics, pretty much every aspect that you would want to know more about.
- [30:25]
David Knowles
Brilliant. Well, we'll keep an eye out for that five part series. Thanks, James. We're now delighted to introduce Alicia Oronovo, co founder and deputy head of the Ukrainian Security and Cooperation Center. Alicia, welcome to. Welcome to Telegraph Towers. Welcome to Ukraine. The latest. Now you work in the field of government relations, national security policy, specifically defence reform, mobilization and recruitment. With that last one being the main focus of your recent work, I understand it. Can you tell us a little bit about the Ukraine Security and Cooperation Centre and the reforms to Ukraine's armed forces recruitment that you've been working with the Ministry of Defence over?
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Alicia Oronovo
Thank you for the kindly introduction. Ukrainian Security and Cooperation center is a think tank based in Kyiv and we have co founded it with the group of. With our team I would say because our team goes way back. We've been together for 15 years and Ukrainian Security and Cooperation center just recently celebrated its fifth anniversary of the establishment. Indeed our main focus since the very time of our establishment has been Ukrainian national security sector and it's straightening the Russian disinformation and in general Russian hybrid warfare against Ukraine and the west and Russian Ukrainian war of course, since the very beginning of it in 2014. For the last two years we've been investing a lot of our time into implementing some of the army reforms as the military recruitment system building in Ukrainian military. This is quite new for Ukraine because before the full scale invasion, before the war in 2014 started, we had just conscription army. So during the full scale invasion and on the fifth year of the full scale war that Russia launched against Ukraine building the voluntary system of involvement enlistment into the military. It was going very much effective. And this is something that we want to build for the years to come and for the time when we would have a pause or a stop in the active combat or the war itself and we would need to contain our military at the certain size.
- [32:45]
David Knowles
Now the issue of military numbers or numbers in the military and recruitment and mobilization and all this kind of stuff. There's been a lot of political pressure on President Zelenskyy and the authorities over or since start the full scale invasion. So at the moment, just to be, just to be clear, men aged 25 to 60 have to make themselves available for military service. I understand it. So they have to register. They are not allowed to leave the country. Doesn't mean that they will immediately be called up, but they have to be available for it. And that's why we see some of these squads going around Ukraine stopping people and asking them to, to account for whoever they are and show that they have registered. Yeah, which is obviously that plays into a lot of the disinformation that Russia puts out which we will speak about about later. They take great delight in showing these stops as the heavy handed. Well, they style it as the heavy handed nature of the Ukrainian authorities pushing people into military service. But it is a well established method. But even so, there's a lot of pressure, a lot of people saying the enlistment age, the mobilization age should be lower than 25. You can enlist as a young man aged 18 and above, but you have to register age 25. Now you say applications and new recruits have more than doubled with partner recruitment departments receiving over 98,000 applications last year alone. Doubling sounds good, but first, yeah, over what time period is that and is it enough? Are enough people joining up voluntarily at the moment?
- [34:10]
Alicia Oronovo
This is a tricky question because we of course we would love for everybody to enlist to the military voluntarily. But let us be honest, on the fifth year of the full scale invasion and the full scale war being so graphic and violent and very tiring for everybody, it would be miraculous if people would go voluntarily still to the military in such numbers that we need per month. So what we have now since the last year and the changes in lit and listen structure, I would say every month we are enlisting in the military. 30,000 new people around that number, this number was announced by the President Zelenskyy as of beginning of the 2026. A little bit more than 15% out of that number has been volunteers, has been through recruitment so answering your question is, is that the 15% enough? It's not 100, but is that making a very big difference? Yes, it does. Because every person who came into the military voluntarily has a very different motivation from the person who could be drafted into the military to fulfill his constitutional duty. And this person who came in voluntarily. The main thing about recruitment is that you can choose the unit you're joining and the position you are filling. So this is very much about very conscious choice about military service and a path in the nearest future.
- [35:45]
David Knowles
So 30,000amonth and you say 15%, 4,500 volunteers and they're able to say, I'm good at engineering, I want to go into the engineers, or I'm good at signals, I want to do that, or the infantry or what have you. So the other people that, that join per month, they don't automatically get a choice if it's deemed that they are particularly good at logistics. They may be streamed logistics, but they don't necessarily get a choice if they're not volunteer. Is that correct?
- [36:12]
Alicia Oronovo
Yes, correct.
- [36:13]
David Knowles
Okay. And at the moment the model seems to be driven by the individual brigades. They have, I mean, as we've been many times in the country and we've seen different brigades have different branding and different marketing campaigns. So is that deemed efficient to allow a much more decentralized recruitment campaign? To allow, I mean, the last place, the last one I was with, 36th Marine Brigade down south, I won't say exactly where, but yeah, they had a very slick. I think I've still got the baseball cap around somewhere that I occasionally let Francis wear. Although to see him in a baseball cap is a sight to behold. But yeah, I mean, how's that working, allowing on the brigades to do the recruitment and the marketing and the branding?
- [36:50]
Alicia Oronovo
Actually it works beautifully because as it turned out, the decentralized recruitment is the only one which actually works now because people in Ukraine, after four years of the full scale war, they want to have some control over their fate, some more control. So what we found out, because our team, we are not only working with the brigades, helping them with branding and attracting new recruits, but we also try to lay analysis, deep analysis on all of these processes. We are in the middle of the. And we have made sociological surveys, a couple of those actually, since the very beginning of our work in the end of 2024. And what we found out is that people are very keen to know about the commander they will be serving with because this is the figure that is most interesting to them regarding their more safe than it could be future because on that particular person will depend a lot in their lives from now on. So that is why actually this decentralized recruitment is the thing that is actually working and bringing results. Because it is showing potential records that this is the unit I will be in, this is the person who would build the rules around me, and this is the person who I believe would take care of me.
- [38:14]
David Knowles
And I think, was it last week or the week before? Certainly in the very recent past where there have been changes to the contracts and the terms of service in order to give people a better idea of what is expected of them and what they can expect from the state. So what's the current state of play regarding a contract if somebody were to when people join?
- [38:33]
Alicia Oronovo
Well, the actual amount of money would be very different depending on the position and on the role the person would be playing on the front line. Indeed we have the new army reform parts was presented by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy just recently. They didn't step into power yet. It supposedly be in June this year, but yes, indeed, under those new army reform parts there should be much higher payment for the people, especially on the infantry and assault soldiers positions because they are taking the most risks. Apart from that, a couple of very needed new parts of changes in the army have been presented during the last year. And some of them were presented by the military representatives who are now in the President's office, one of whom is Pavlo Polisa, his deputy head at the President's office of Ukraine. And a couple of very needed changes, meaning the fair distribution of mobilized people. So every combat brigade is getting the fixed number of mobilized people every month so they can plan their replenishment every month. That is why the service there is easier because you can plan rotations, rest for the soldiers, etc, etc.
- [39:59]
David Knowles
So the new reforms, and I think for those right at the zero line, right at the front, I mean, I can't remember the figure off the top of my head, but it's many thousands of dollars extra per month for those that are taking the greatest risk. Is there a limit to the contract? So if you join up now, is it open ended until the war is over or is it a two year, three year contract and then you are able to go back to your civilian life?
- [40:21]
Alicia Oronovo
We are now just waiting for the whole terms to be presented because it was under development. This reform was from the end of last year basically and different ideas were being discussed. But the core of all of these ideas was that people who are already in the military for a couple of years, since the very beginning of the full scale invasion, or even before the beginning of the full scale invasion, they could have a fixed term contract for like a year or two and then they would get a pause for a year or so not to be mobilized again into the military, not to be drafted again. So this is the main idea around those new changes that are about to be implemented as well as the higher race. And indeed in this new contract we expect that people who are serving under the most risk, infantry, assault operations, soldiers, they could get up to 400,000 hrevnia per month, which is. Well in dollars it would be around 10k.
- [41:29]
David Knowles
This is pounds sterling. It's also about 8,000 salary. About 8,000amonth.
- [41:36]
Alicia Oronovo
Yeah, it's fair.
- [41:37]
David Knowles
That's a lot of money. Yeah, exactly, it's fair. What do you think of. And I'm slightly out of date, so please correct me if I'm wrong, but I'm under the impression that as of 3rd Army Corps on Khatiya allow their people to get to leave the country. On times of periods of leave. The men are allowed out.
- [41:54]
Alicia Oronovo
All of men who are serving in the military can get an official vacation or they can go abroad to have a business trip, basically if they have been invited to take part in the event.
- [42:08]
David Knowles
So any service personnel, men and women are allowed to leave the country on leave?
- [42:12]
Alicia Oronovo
Yeah.
- [42:13]
David Knowles
Okay.
- [42:14]
Alicia Oronovo
This is one of the biggest benefit to serve in Ukrainian Defense Forces. You can go on vacation, whatever you want. Like whatever you want.
- [42:23]
David Knowles
And what's the. Has there been a problem with people going absent, not coming back from that are the numbers.
- [42:29]
Alicia Oronovo
I'm not aware of that kind of problem. There is some issue with EVOL soldiers in Ukraine, but not because they are living on vacations and don't come back.
- [42:40]
David Knowles
Now Kirilla Badanov, who's currently the head of the President's office, formerly head of the Ukrainian military intelligence, he says that Ukraine can't meet the army's needs armed forces needs of the armed forces solely through voluntary recruitment. He's warned of, however, so this idea of lowering the mobilization age from 25. But he's warned of what he calls the strategic harm immobilising everybody aged over 18. That is the generation that fix, repair, run the country afterwards. But he said recruiting volunteers is not capable of covering the numbers required by the army. Basically there was no way to voluntarily motivate that many people after 12 and a half years of war talking about since 2014. So he's calling for a smarter way. So not, not a blanket lowering the mobilization age down to 18 or 20, 21, what have you. He's calling for a smarter way of doing it. What do you think that way might be? Or do you agree with. Do you disagree with his premise?
- [43:36]
Alicia Oronovo
First of all, I don't disagree. Indeed, recruitment would not be able to exist without mobilization. This is just a better part of enlistment into the military. It would change eventually when the war will stop, or we would get a pause or ceasefire. But as of now, indeed those two, they cannot be separated, meaning mobilization and recruitment. Talking about the possible new rules or maybe changing something regarding mobilization or recruitment. I would say that as of now the system that has been in place is working because Budanov's deputy, Pavlo Polisa just recently stated that we have no big issues with mobilization during at least half a year and we can see the raw evidence of it because nobody is being transferred inside Ukrainian armed forces from one branch to another, from, I don't know, air forces to be placed as an infantryman to the land forces. So this is actually true. And together with that we have a raising number of people being recruited, so people coming in voluntarily and taking their place in the military. So as of now, I would say that the system, together with hopefully soon to be implemented parts of the army reform, new contracts and higher payment and delay in being drafted again would give us some more changes. And as you can see, Ukraine is doing better than Russia right now regarding the rules of the war of attrition. So we are very keen to keep going like that.
- [45:17]
David Knowles
What's been the experience of women in the armed forces since the full scale invasion? Are they able to serve in all branches, the armed forces? I mean, did you find gravitating more towards drone units or others? Have they been received?
- [45:30]
Alicia Oronovo
Women are starting their big way in Ukrainian military, I would say because since 2014 we had some Soviet rules in our military. For example, women could not take positions like combat positions, being mortar commanders or like snipers, etc, etc. They could be only enlisted in the military for the positions of Cooks, seamstresses, cleaners, etc. And we still had women in the military at that time. From 2014 until 2022, we had a lot of combat women in the military who were medics and just regular soldiers. They hold very different combat positions, but wasn't recognized by the state and by the military. It got shifted and changed before 2022 and around 2018, I suppose the last restrictions were pulled off in the military regarding women. So after that only the cultural background was left in the military. Regarding women, what we can say about the time of the full scale invasion? At the beginning of the full scale war in 2022, we had around 30,000 women in the military. As of now, we have 75,000 women in the military. All of them came in voluntarily. Because we don't have draft for women. Any women is not obliged to actually serve in the military. So all of them are volunteers. And with change of the nature of the war, when the physical state and muscles and everything about posture and physical health and stamina is not the most important thing to be a good soldier, to be a good fighter, because we see shifts in the nature of war. More damage is being caused by drones, by unmanned systems. Women can take more place in military because they can use their brains, they can use their abilities, their organization skills to be very good fighters in this new time military. So we are now supporting one of the projects from the Ukrainian land forces, actually, which is about inviting and attracting women to the unmanned system units inside of the land forces. And we see it working and we see women are trying to find their place in the military to be at most effective to be guided through the system, because this is not an easy system to pass and to be effective on the new place they want to take.
- [48:15]
David Knowles
Now you say Russia's launched a disinformation campaign trying to discourage people from joining the armed forces and to discredit the methods of recruitment and what have you, what form has it taken and how much do you have to keep an eye out for it?
- [48:27]
Alicia Oronovo
Oh, very much actually. And our team has been monitoring and analyzing Russian disinformation even before the full scale invasion began. And we saw how in 2022, Russia was targeting the very different things that it is targeting now. Because at that time in 2022, it was the most important for Ukraine to have international support. That's what Russia was targeting. Also, Kremlin disinformation was trying to discredit Ukrainian refugees abroad. And also third aim was to try to caused tension between internal refugees in Ukraine, people who were forcefully moved from eastern parts and northern parts to other parts of Ukraine. So this was their, were their main aims to follow in 2022. What we see now is that Russia is aiming to now the most important thing, our human potential. Because this is the only thing actually that we can fight with. Because unlike Russians, we are not attracting people to be just a cannon meat. We are building technologically advanced military to try to fight back. So what we see, what our analytical team has been observing during the last six months around the topics of mobilization and recruitment, because those were two main topics and the third one was unity among society. So among 10 million mentions that our analytics had found on these three topics, 7.5 million were about mobilization and conscription centers work. And the sentiment was of course negative. And we actually observed how Russians were shifting the negative sentiments towards conscription centers representatives to provoke an actual physical violence against them. And we actually see the quantity of these cases of people going physical on conscription centers representatives on the streets in Ukraine for the past couple of months. So I would say that this is the most dangerous thing that Russia is doing. But overall, we are observing all of the instruments they are using now because they are constantly evolving all of the instruments they're using. AI usage is very, very wide right now. We have tracked many channels created and the only thing that was posted on these channels were the videos generated by AI in which supposedly Ukrainian soldiers were talking about how everything is bad, how commanders left them to die, how to go evil is the best choice for them to take for them and their comrades. So this is one thing. What we see also on social media, especially on Telegram, which is linked to Russia, which is Russian made and operated by Russian team, is that the Russians are using Telegram for recruiting agents.
- [51:40]
David Knowles
Yeah, we've reported on a number of attacks and car bombings and things where the agent has said they were contacted over Telegram and they were.
- [51:48]
Alicia Oronovo
So Russia is using that. And also they are looking for the people who are not happy with Ukrainian government online and they are contacting them to try to recruit them to do some murders even. And yes, just in general, Russian approach to the disinformation hasn't been changed, but they are actively using all of the newest instruments to make it look very much believable. And apart from that, they're trying to pick videos of actual cases when somebody was mistreated by the conscription center representatives or other videos that could look like it. I don't know, police officers doing something with just regular men on the street. And they are posting those very short videos without context to make it look like it's everywhere. Everywhere. People got mistreated by the conscription centers. This is very much not okay to do that to Ukrainians and to try to make this perception of this unfairness all around. So this is what Russia is aiming to do. And unfortunately in this case, we need to say that they are successful.
- [53:03]
David Knowles
Well, just on that, just finally. So you say their aims are still the same, but the means at their disposal with AI in particular has exploded. So their aims are the same. You're able to measure the amount of this stuff that's out there that you're having to combat. Are you able to measure the effectiveness of these Russian campaigns? You say they are being successful. Are you able to give any feel for how successful, how many people are buying into it, what sort of feeling in society? Are there any surveys public about people feeling more attuned to believe these narratives or less inclined to believe the Ukrainian government narrative? I mean, are you able to measure that bit of it?
- [53:40]
Alicia Oronovo
This is very interesting question because the worst part of all of it is that we are monitoring the mentions. But from this whole 7.5 million of mentions, we cannot say which one are generated by just regular people who are alive and have their profiles on social media and which one are made by the bots. We know that this is very different quantity. Meaning that the bots and Russian disinformation is about 90% of everything, but it's hard to track. And why am I mentioning this is because when you cannot originate every mention, if there is an actual person writing or a bottle, you cannot say how it is actually spreading. What can we say for sure is that some of the words that Russians are being using towards conscription centers representatives has been picked up by regular people. And we had a very disturbing case back in Kyiv a couple of weeks ago when one of my colleague was sitting in the studio of one of our main TV channels and was at by the host using this word that Russian propaganda is using for the conscription centers and trying to make it look like, let us see this conscription center's representatives. They're not white, aren't they? Like they are just catching people on the streets. So when it comes to actual effect, we know for sure that Russia is multiplying it a lot, but the actual number is unknown to us. What can be said in that regard is that if Ukraine is still able to enlist into the military the amount we need every month, this is very good. And what we see also from our surveys, because we were trying to study this topic from different sides about disinformation and approach that Ukrainians have towards Russian disinformation is that people are shifting from need to see explanation about one certain fact, one certain case of disinformation towards the explanation of the entire mechanism. So they are shifting to more systemic strategic stuff regarding disinformation which show us that Ukrainian people are adapting to the new reality in which Russian disinformation is all around us. And we understand that there is apart from everything that we can see on social media, Russian disinformation actually travels from person to person just on the street because you just read something and you went to your friend or neighbor and tell it just as the news. So we were able to adapt as a society. But I think we would know the actual price after the war.
- [56:45]
David Knowles
Thanks, Alessia. We'll come back to you in a moment. Let's go to James first for final thoughts, please. James, got any thoughts you want to leave us with for today?
- [56:53]
James Rothwell
Thank you, Dom. I just want to remind everyone that the next part of the Europe Rearms series is coming out quite soon and there's quite a big UK angle to the piece that we've been working on. Like I said, I, I don't want to give too much away before it comes out, but we're looking at the preparedness level of the UK to some extent in comparison with countries that share a land border with Russia, Poland, the Baltics, that sort of thing. Now you might say, well, geography is a big part of this story. We're, you know, miles and miles away from Russia compared to the Poles, compared to the Baltic countries. Why do we need to worry about that? But that's one of the things we're going to dive into in this piece, so I think it'll make a very interesting read.
- [57:31]
David Knowles
Thanks, James. Speak again soon. Alessia, as our guest, where would you like to leave our listeners and viewers today?
- [57:37]
Alicia Oronovo
Well, I would say that if somebody would tell me in 2021 that Russia would launch full scale war against Ukraine, I might not believe. But if we would not do at least what we have done back then to try to prepare our society for the possibility of war, the war would look very, very different the first, even months. So I would say that Russian disinformation and Russian informational influence is the thing that should be studied and battled even and especially in the nations and countries that are not actively in the wartime like Ukraine is. And societies need to be constantly prepared to the possibility of war coming because the whole situation around Russia and the other authoritarian countries is evolving in not the best for the democratic states way.
- [58:34]
David Knowles
Well, as we say here, question everything, double source it, everything that we come up with. If you've got time, check it as well. We're not infallible to some of this misinformation that's out there. Alessia, thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you. To James earlier on. That's it folks. We'll be back same time, same place tomorrow. I hope you can join us.
- [58:55]
Podcast Narrator
Ukraine, the latest is an original podcast from the Telegraph created by David Knowles. Every episode featuring us in the studio maps and battlefield footage is now available to watch on our YouTube channel. Subscribe@www.YouTube.com crane the latest there's a link in the description. You can also sign up to the Ukraine the Latest newsletter. Each week we answer your questions, provide recommended reading and give exclusive analysis and behind the scenes insights plus diagrams of the front lines and weaponry to complement our reporting. It's free for everyone including non subscribers. You can find the link to sign up in the episode description. If you appreciate our work, please consider following Ukraine the Latest on your preferred podcast app and leave us a review as it helps others find the show. Please also share it with those who may not be aware we exist. You can also get in touch directly to ask questions or give comments by emailing ukrainepodelegraph.co.uk we continue to read every message. You can also contact us directly on X. You'll find our handles in the description. As ever, we're especially interested to hear where you're listening from around the world. And finally, to support our work and stay on top of all of our Ukraine news, analysis and dispatches from the ground, please subscribe to the Telegraph. You can get one month for free, then two months for just one pound at www.telegraph.co.uk Ukraine the latest Ukraine the Latest was Today produced by Rachel Porter. Executive producers are Francis Durnley, Louisa Wells and David Knowles.
- [60:35]
David Knowles
My name is David Knowles. Thank you all for listening. Goodbye.